Christine Lagarde's leadership of the IMF is not quite three months- but there's simmering debate over whether the IMF can stage-manage the seemingly inevitable Greek debt default without turning it into a global financial crisis.

The appointment of a former Chinese central bank official, Zhu Min as a deputy managing director at the IMF was meant to increase Asia's voice at the Fund. But some current and former policymakers, say the region remains under-represented.

The International Monetary Fund finds itself front-and-center in dealing with Europe’s debt crisis, urging banks to recapitalize and policymakers to begin to aggressively address the problem. In Asia, however, the Fund finds itself in a completely different role, limited to monitoring and consulting with economies that seem relatively sheltered—at least for now—from the global crisis.

Those looking for answers from this week's World Bank/IMF conference were presented only with more questions and vague reassurances that global policy leaders are acutely aware of the problems and prepared to act.

European policymakers, stung by criticism for failing to stem the euro zone debt crisis, began working on new ways to stop fallout from Greece's near-bankruptcy from potentially upsetting the world economy.

Depending on country of residence, dramatic differences exist in the working lives of citizens from different nations. CNBC.com took a look at several major factors that can significantly affect the quality of work life — average income, income taxes, retirement age, average work week and average vacation days — over 22 select countries around the world.

In a global economy that has been plagued by troubles in the world’s financial systems, the words “safe” and “bank” still give investors pause. The shakeup of banking systems around the world raises the question: "Which banks are the safest?"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned global economic recovery would be “weak and bumpy” and said the global economy was slowing on Tuesday, as it slashed its growth forecast to 4 percent for both 2011 and 2012.